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It has been the deadly assault of October 7, 2023, which shook world Jewry unlike anything else following the founding of the state of Israel.

For Jews it was profoundly disturbing. For Israel as a nation, the situation represented deeply humiliating. The entire Zionist endeavor was founded on the assumption which held that the nation would ensure against things like this from ever happening again.

A response seemed necessary. Yet the chosen course Israel pursued – the obliteration of the Gaza Strip, the casualties of many thousands ordinary people – represented a decision. This selected path made more difficult the perspective of many American Jews understood the attack that set it in motion, and presently makes difficult the community's commemoration of that date. In what way can people grieve and remember a tragedy affecting their nation while simultaneously a catastrophe experienced by a different population connected to their community?

The Complexity of Mourning

The challenge of mourning lies in the fact that no agreement exists regarding what any of this means. Actually, among Jewish Americans, the last two years have seen the disintegration of a fifty-year consensus about the Zionist movement.

The early development of Zionist agreement among American Jewry extends as far back as an early twentieth-century publication written by a legal scholar and then future Supreme Court judge Louis D. Brandeis titled “Jewish Issues; Finding Solutions”. But the consensus truly solidified following the Six-Day War during 1967. Before then, American Jewry maintained a delicate yet functioning parallel existence across various segments that had a range of views about the requirement for Israel – Zionists, neutral parties and opponents.

Background Information

Such cohabitation continued through the mid-twentieth century, in remnants of socialist Jewish movements, within the neutral American Jewish Committee, among the opposing American Council for Judaism and similar institutions. Regarding Chancellor Finkelstein, the head of the Jewish Theological Seminary, pro-Israel ideology was primarily theological instead of governmental, and he did not permit the singing of Hatikvah, the Israeli national anthem, at religious school events in the early 1960s. Additionally, Zionism and pro-Israelism the centerpiece within modern Orthodox Judaism prior to the 1967 conflict. Different Jewish identity models existed alongside.

However following Israel routed its neighbors during the 1967 conflict that year, taking control of areas such as Palestinian territories, Gaza, the Golan and East Jerusalem, the American Jewish connection with the nation changed dramatically. The triumphant outcome, along with enduring anxieties of a “second Holocaust”, produced a growing belief in the country’s critical importance within Jewish identity, and created pride for its strength. Language regarding the remarkable nature of the success and the freeing of land provided the Zionist project a spiritual, even messianic, significance. In that triumphant era, considerable the remaining ambivalence regarding Zionism vanished. In that decade, Commentary magazine editor Norman Podhoretz declared: “We are all Zionists now.”

The Agreement and Restrictions

The Zionist consensus left out Haredi Jews – who generally maintained a Jewish state should only be ushered in through traditional interpretation of the messiah – but united Reform, Conservative Judaism, Modern Orthodox and most unaffiliated individuals. The predominant version of the consensus, later termed left-leaning Zionism, was established on the idea regarding Israel as a democratic and democratic – albeit ethnocentric – country. Countless Jewish Americans considered the occupation of Palestinian, Syrian and Egypt's territories following the war as provisional, believing that a solution would soon emerge that would maintain a Jewish majority in pre-1967 Israel and Middle Eastern approval of the nation.

Several cohorts of Jewish Americans were thus brought up with support for Israel a fundamental aspect of their identity as Jews. The nation became a central part in Jewish learning. Israeli national day evolved into a religious observance. National symbols adorned many temples. Seasonal activities became infused with Hebrew music and the study of contemporary Hebrew, with visitors from Israel instructing US young people Israeli customs. Visits to Israel expanded and achieved record numbers with Birthright Israel during that year, when a free trip to Israel was provided to young American Jews. Israel permeated almost the entirety of the American Jewish experience.

Changing Dynamics

Interestingly, throughout these years after 1967, US Jewish communities grew skilled at religious pluralism. Tolerance and discussion between Jewish denominations grew.

Yet concerning support for Israel – that represented tolerance ended. One could identify as a rightwing Zionist or a liberal advocate, yet backing Israel as a majority-Jewish country was assumed, and challenging that perspective placed you beyond accepted boundaries – a non-conformist, as a Jewish periodical termed it in an essay recently.

But now, under the weight of the destruction within Gaza, food shortages, young victims and anger about the rejection by numerous Jewish individuals who avoid admitting their complicity, that consensus has collapsed. The moderate Zionist position {has lost|no longer